FCC Maps the 3G Wasteland Of the Western US 173
alphadogg writes "The Federal Communications Commission has released a map showing which counties across the U.S. lacked coverage from either 3G or 4G networks and found that wide swaths of the western half of the country were 3G wastelands, particularly in mountainous states such as Idaho and Nevada. This isn't particularly surprising since it's much more difficult for carriers to afford building out mobile data networks in sparsely populated mountainous regions, but it does underscore how large stretches of the United States lack access to mobile data services that people in the Northeast, South and Midwest now take for granted."
If you compare maps.... (Score:3, Interesting)
from 10 years ago, the same areas look like wastelands for net access in general.
Telecommunications companies simply don't want to build out. Either the government makes them do it, or they drag their feet on it. The more they drag their feet, the more isolated the communities out there become. Some communities out there - like the FLDS compounds - actually thrive on that level of isolation.
It's not a matter of carriers not being able to "afford" building out - previous telecommunications acts requiring them to build out telephone infrastructure proved that not to be the case. They just don't "want" to.
"Free Market" at work, apparently. It doesn't fix shit.
Re:If you compare maps.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is the free market at work. Not enough people out there to justify building the infrastructure. Less people, less money.
But should we classify 3G or 4G service as a utility? That's the real question.
Re:If you compare maps.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is the free market at work. Not enough people out there to justify building the infrastructure. Less people, less money.
There might not be enough people to justify it for the profit motives of those companies, but those motives are by nature selfish and don't give a damn about the larger socioeconomic picture. What might those few people be able to contribute to society if they actually enjoyed the same connectedness as their urban comrades?
Like the GP said, the free market has tunnel vision and doesn't fix shit.
Re:If you compare maps.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is the free market at work. Not enough people out there to justify building the infrastructure. Less people, less money.
There might not be enough people to justify it for the profit motives of those companies, but those motives are by nature selfish and don't give a damn about the larger socioeconomic picture. What might those few people be able to contribute to society if they actually enjoyed the same connectedness as their urban comrades?
And how much money might be sunk into providing higher-capacity connectivity to those people, only to find that that they don't contribute anything, tovarisch?
Like the GP said, the free market has tunnel vision and doesn't fix shit.
Rather, it doesn't make the decisions you want it to make. The people living there choose to do so, knowing the various trade-offs that come with that. They have the pluses of better air quality and less noise, and the minuses of crappy connectivity and more-expensive groceries. I'm sure pizza delivery service sucks out there, too. Going to force Dominos to open stores out in those parts of Nevada where population density drops below half a person per square mile?
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And how much money might be sunk into providing higher-capacity connectivity to those people, only to find that that they don't contribute anything, tovarisch?
Red Godwin.
Re:If you compare maps.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Usually, rural types are extremely local-community driven, simply *because* there isn't a huge and diverse network of social services paid for by taxes.
Water, electric, and basic telephone on wires that are literally 70 years old. That and having the roads grated 12 times a year (if you are lucky!) Is what their tax money buys them. (Compare to city people who get prompt emergency services, prompt police protection/assistance, paved roads, and a bunch of other nice things.)
This community centric "we gotta help each other out!" Mentality is how they survive. Their crop catches fire? Who shows up first-- all the neighbors with sacks to BEAT it out, or the fire dept? Guess what? Its the former. Unless the fire is really, horribly, "omg! Its destroying the whole state!" Big, the county will only send a cop car to go acess the damages.
Similarly, the "no rural internet" problem could be solved fairly easily, if two things were permitted.
1) force the telecoms to offer a highspeed connection at radically reduced rates to farmers who then redistribute access to thir neighbors. (These are the ones right next to civic centers. You know, the ones that can get access to the main lines.)
2) free up, and preserve a spectrum chunk for longer-range (say, 5 miles tops) node to node mesh networks intended for public use.
Allow the farmers themselves to build out the network, and it will get where it needs to go.
The carriers have said they can't make a profit from it and so they won't do it. Obviously they would have no problem with somebody else doing it, since clearly no profit can be lost.
Or, is it really just a pac of lies, like most people know it to be?
Hmm...
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Oh yes.. the burden of maintaining a single mile of dedicated fiber. Oh, its so terrible!
If you are so concerned about it, the fed bill to enact the "forcing" can simply set limits on how much the isps charge per megabyte transerred, (we are talking wired data on their network. The mesh network is not theirs.) Institutes rules that state goverments have to follow to pay for the service (a 1$/mo bond issue would easily pass for something as highly demanded as internet access.) And which forces the telecoms t
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Forcing anything on the telecoms that they are not already doing today out of their own free market motives means they are either incurring an expense they would otherwise not incur or they are missing out on income they would not otherwise get, and that means that their customers, shareholders, or employees not on the 'winning' side of such a forced big communist government thing are going to end up paying the 'fucking dimes' to make up for the balance. There is no magic money tree that makes up the differ
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You aparently are not realizing the number of farmers being serviced, nor are you comprehending that large civic centers with the necessary trunk lines are fairly uniformly dotted inside such agrarian areas.
Also, I am not suggesting that the mesh network supply a t1 speed connection for all users either. It only needs to provide better than 28.8kbps dialup. (Bcause that is all you can squeeze out of the horrifically neglected lines that were only installed because of a 1950s federal law requiring them.)
Lat
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Some of what you say is true and country folks can't expect the same services as in the city. That's why people moved to the cities in the first place. However:
Nobody is stopping you from doing that.
Oh yes they are. The first fundamental blockage is that the teleco companies own the most interesting parts of the radio spectrum and buy it up everywhere. Secondly, whenever a town starts to build a network of their own they come in and try to get legislation blocking it.
This blocking of competition also generalises to private initiatives in m
Re:If you compare maps.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course. Because Internet Connectivity is the same thing has having a Domino's store nearby.
They are both luxuries, yes. Hard as it is for those of us in the tech world to grasp, there are quite a few people who can get along just fine without a network connection. For that matter, we're not talking about connectivity vs. lack of it, we're talking about broadband vs. dialup/satellite. Actually, the original article was about a lack of 3G coverage. These aren't areas where you're isolated from the world because you can't use email or instant messaging, these are areas where you can't watch YouTube on your cell phone. Call me hard-hearted if you like, but that doesn't come close to justifying intervention in the market, by my standards.
You are, of course, right when you say that the market doesn't make the decision I want it to make. Duh. It makes the decisions that the companies who make up the market want to make. Which, in turn, are predicated on the needs and desires of customers in said market.
Now that we have the Captain Obvious commentary out of the way, why don't we focus on the actual problem?
Your assertion was that the free market didn't "fix" the situation. My point was that just because you think something is a problem, doesn't mean that it is a problem that requires fixing.
Namely, that Internet connectivity these days is a lot more like electricity and roads: a fundamental infrastructure whose cost is far outweighed by the network effect it promotes. At that point, the question of ROI trumps all, and arguing that the market knows best is a ridiculously short-sighted answer.
That's your as-yet-unproven assertion. Failing to see the same things that you do does not qualify as "short-sighted" unless those things are actually there.
Finally, your argument that people choose to live there means they ought to just suck it up... even ignoring the incredible amount of Not-My-Problem attitude that this displays,
As I pointed out, everyone has costs that they have to "suck up", as well as benefits, based on where they live. Those people living someplace should bear those costs as well as reaping those benefits. There's already far too much subsidizing of some areas at the expense of others. We should be rolling such things back, not adding more.
it also ignores the fact that moving has significant costs attached to it: emotional costs of rebuilding your social life, monetary costs of actually moving, and even the requirement of actually finding and having a job in the new area before moving. Those are all real costs that are easy to quantify for someone who is pondering moving.
Putting aside the idea that people in urban areas should be subsidizing wireless broadband for people in rural (or in many cases, near-wilderness) areas in order to spare those folks the costs of moving out of such places, which i absolutely reject, I think you have a major misconception about who lives in these areas. Although I suppose it's theoretically possible, I highly doubt there is anyone living out in the middle of the Mojave, miles away from anybody else, due to being too poor to move to the city; anyone without the ability (and requisite income) to regularly visit a population center for supplies is going to die. Anyone else would save money by moving into town. In Nevada, at least (where I'm at, hence my example bias), the major source of rural employment is mining, whose average salary is almost double the overall average for the state. They don't need other people subsidizing them. Another reason people live in those regions is to get away from the city. Well, if the most important things to you are clean air, privacy, elbow room, being able to see the stars at night, and being able to fire off your guns without anyone caring, go for it. Just be prepared for poor wireless coverage, and don't ask other people to pay for it.
Re:If you compare maps.... (Score:5, Insightful)
See my reply above.
If the carriers can't be bothered to buld/can't make a profit from building the necessary infrastructure, then permit the farmers themselves to do it.
Many farmers put up towers already for a wide variety of reasons, such as wind generators, and agricultural fuel pumps/water towers.
Allowing them to put a simple mesh extender/repeater up there so that they can help service their neighbors, with the subsidy going to the telecom upstream to not throttle the exit pipes, and the money stays where you want it to stay, and the people impacted pay for the infrastructure themselves.
Of course, that's awefully close to filthy communism..... once a functional mesh network servicing a large pool of users springs up, rest assured somebody would rush in to extract tolls on the thing.
That's how shit like that works.
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See my reply above.
Saw it after I posted, and was going to reply after dinner, but since you did me the courtesy of replying to me directly... :)
If the carriers can't be bothered to buld/can't make a profit from building the necessary infrastructure, then permit the farmers themselves to do it.
Many farmers put up towers already for a wide variety of reasons, such as wind generators, and agricultural fuel pumps/water towers.
Allowing them to put a simple mesh extender/repeater up there so that they can help service their neighbors, with the subsidy going to the telecom upstream to not throttle the exit pipes, and the money stays where you want it to stay, and the people impacted pay for the infrastructure themselves.
Sounds like a very good idea to me, in particular your mentioning (in the other post) about freeing up spectrum for it. I expect there'd be a fair amount of red tape and lawyering involved, unfortunately. What's needed here is a spectrum equivalent of the Homesteading Act -- except that instead of building or farming to establish ownership of land, you'd need to provide access to est
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The farmers are unlikely to be the tollbooth operators. Again, farmers don't charge each other for emergency services, like fire prevention. They do it because they expect to get service in return if they need it. Its an implied community ethic.
The tollboth operators will be the equipment OEMs, and the upstream ISPs maintaining a few miles of dedicated fiber to a few "yokels", complaining about people using their equipment without any licensing, or about them saturating said pipes that they would be subsid
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Now that we have the Captain Obvious commentary out of the way, why don't we focus on the actual problem? Namely, that Internet connectivity these days is a lot more like electricity and roads: a fundamental infrastructure whose cost is far outweighed by the network effect it promotes.
I think you need to bring in Captain Comprehension to help you - the report is about 3G and 4G access, not Internet connectivity. Most of those people at the end of those roads (and I used to live in Eastern King County, out by Skykomish) have DSL available. "High Speed" wireless? No - but Internet.
Re:If you compare maps.... (Score:4, Informative)
You would be surprised to find that many of the areas that the telecoms claim to service with dsl, are not in fact, actually servicable by dsl.
Take for instace: a quaint little town just outside wichita. "Peck Ks".
Recently pushed into prominence by being about 10 miles from a newly built casino. (Northstar.) This town doesn't even have a gas station. It has crappy 1950s federally mandated telephone and powerlines that are unreliable. Residents have to use on-air televison, or satelite.
Internet is either horrible dialup at 28.8 speeds on a good day, with continual disconnects from the shitty lines, or, 50$/mo (w/o bundling) satelite, with data caps, or 2g verizon coverage.
I know, because my mother lives there.
Oh, ATT claims that dsl is available... until you actually call
and ask.
It is that way over most of the state, in fact.
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Again, at what point do you decide that some people aren't worth participating in the general Internet economy? Considering that the founding fathers wrote into the constitution the need for the postal service, I'm endlessly amused by argument that today's equivalent of the postal service should be left strictly to what passes for market forces in that area.
Are we deciding, or are the people who VOLUNTARILY CHOOSE to live in a location with reduced wireless Internet access choosing to not be part of the general Internet economy? I know a programmer at Microsoft who specifically chooses to live near the top of Stevens Pass in WA - because he DOESN'T have Internet or cell phone access - when he goes home, he leaves his job behind him. That's his choice.
As far as the postal service, it was guaranteed delivery to LOCAL post offices - not to your house. For t
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Housing/property in the boonies is nearly always much cheaper than equivalent accommodations in/close to a big city - so there are some offsetting savings.
Re:If you compare maps.... (Score:5, Insightful)
What might those few people be able to contribute to society if they actually enjoyed the same connectedness as their urban comrades?
What might our urban comrades contribute to society if they got off the damned internet once and a while?
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Re:If you compare maps.... (Score:4)
Like the GP said, the free market has tunnel vision and doesn't fix shit.
Your concern is wasted on the people who actually choose to live in those places. Those who really care so much about how connected they are to the rest of the world can just as easily choose to relocate nearer to a city. The rest will continue to live happy lives as they always have. The only ones who think these people's lack of fast internet or mobile data is such a travesty are people like you who already have a fast connection and think that everyone else should want the same thing.
But don't worry. Our brilliant politicians in Washington agree with you, so they will spend millions of taxpayer dollars in order to bring 3G speeds to people that couldn't care less. Really smart. The only tunnel vision is that of those who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge that the free market is responsible for much of the good that they take for granted every day.
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Look at the opposite way. I don't want to live anywhere without 3G or broadband. Few people do. It's like having a city without electricity or running water these days. It might even be more important since this is the way people share ideas and news.
You can argue that they should move, but that's easier said than done, and how are they to know what they're missing if they've lived without it? Yes, you can also argue that isolated communities should remain isolated communities, but then their ideas do
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I don't want to live anywhere without 3G or broadband. Few people do. It's like having a city without electricity or running water these days.
Being someone who lives near some of these "wastelands" I can assure you there's nothing there and anything qualifying as a "city" is going to have both 3G and broadband. You're worried that the lack of 3G access in the middle of a cattle rancher's mountainous 100,000 acre property is causing "unnecessary strife" and some kind of disconnect within the United States
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More to the point, Can the USA afford to fracture along the digital divide?
A lot of the social and political issues that I now find are important did not exist in my world ten years ago, before we had this level of Internet connectivity, and do not exist in the world of persons who do not use the Internet on a daily basis. This is not just matters of intellectual property, identity theft, and so forth. My exposure through the Internet to a much broader range of opinions on just about every topic has caused
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I am on the internet several hours a day between work and home and a voracious reader of sources from all ends of the ideological spectrum and my conservatism, if anything, is re-enforced.
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Generally, we as consumers put up with waaay too much shit, and continue to buy products anyway, allowing the companies to whatever they want.
It seems to me like having nationwide 4G coverage would be a HUGE selling point fo
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I don't think most people are in such areas enough that they are willing to pay much more monthly for a service they will rarely if ever use.
Personally, I wouldn't pay an extra $10/month on my mobile bill to get mobile access while sleeping in the woods (or even driving th
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I don't know. There are parts of Kansas where the little spots cover a dozen people. There are parts of other states where the spots cover a few hundred.
The spot in north east AZ covers over 30k people. Surely there would be some ROI there.
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That spot happens to be an indian reservation - very poor people and possibly some weird legal reasons why they can't put coverage there. It is one of the few big black spots on the map that deserves coverage though.
Take for example that small black spot just south of the wyoming border in Utah (bottom of the 'notch' in the state map) That is the High Unitas Wildernes area. Backpackers and forest rangers only. - there are few roads, and no houses or farms, let alone cell phone towers.
How about that blac
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I live here in the western US too - you are not exaggerating the population density.
If you live in a place without any internet access, chances are that you have to drive farther to get to the school than you do to find internet access. And if you live there, it is because you chose to live away from society and wanted to be away from more than just the internet.
If you actually have a farm, ranch or other good reason to be there, then according to the map, the internet is already there for you. The only ot
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"Free Market" at work, apparently. It doesn't fix shit.
You're assuming something's broken.
The badlands and ranges and ranches and deserts and endless waves of what North-easterners call flyover country have gotten along without cell phones for centuries, and they've done just fine. Urbanites need their cell phones; ranch-hands don't. Bringing multiplayer Angry Birds to the back woods of Idaho is not profitable because it doesn't fill a need. There is no shit to fix here. Move along, lil' doggies.
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Because they watch too much tv. (Score:2)
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The uses are apparently more than can be summed up in a 300 page article.
And it's not just farmers that don't live in the cities. I know of a lot of towns and small cities that have connectivity that harkens back to the 1930s or 40s, except they don't have human switchboard operators or crank phones.
It's already been shown that when the government gi
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> Urbanites need their cell phones
Yeah, like they need a bad rash. Are you fucking kidding me?
I say *nobody* really needs cell phones.
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You city folk have gotten along without cell phones for centuries as well... you did just fine.
Asshole.
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Re:If you compare maps.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can!
Instantaneous access to current market prices. Farmers who have this access have reported much better returns on their harvests.
Access to emergency services incase of an accident. Some ranches around here don't have even basic cell access.
Instant access to veterinary, horticultural, ect... resources. "Never seen this bug before, is it good or bad for my crops? If I don't squish now will I have to napalm my field later?"
Sound and image recognition programs. Not many people can tell the different between a crow's mating call and their "Holyshit it's a bear!" call.
Maps.
Repair resources. Not everyone knows their quad bolt by bolt, knowing your kawasaki has a loose clutch linkage can save a lot of walking.
Entertainment. Not all cowboys find the great outdoors so incredibly breathtaking that they never get bored, and a horse can navigate by itself better than any californian driver.
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My father in law actually owns a large farm in Iowa, about 2 hours outside of Des Moines. His closest neighbor, 5 miles distant, is his brother, who farms a large tract alongside his. His next closest neighbor, about 7 miles in the other direction, is his father.
They have radios when they're out in the fields. They have broadband in their homes. I've actually seen the commodity pricing terminals that farmers use, and yes, as you say, "Farmers who have this access have reported much better returns on the
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Even if you are just as incapable of seeing a situation any different from your own.
Even if he's quite capable of seeing a situation different from his own, the point remains. Your dig was completely irrelevant.
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Yeah, I definitely can't think of ANY uses for mobile communication devices on a farm or ranch...
The article doesn't say they don't have access to mobile communications.
It says they don't have 3G or 4G.
Many of these same areas have EDGE or GPRS, for Data and can make voice calls.
Much of this are is wilderness. No power. No backhaul. And nobody but campers and hunters out there.
Try a little Google Earth some time and find out just how empty these areas are.
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Also I question the validity of the map. I know some of the areas of Utah where they claim solid coverage exists, it certainly doesn't have it. Once you get out of town or off the main transit routes (I-15, I-80, I-70, I-84, and Hwys 89 and 40) coverage becomes much more intermitten
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The map shows 3G and 4G DATA.
Many areas that appear totally devoid of coverage still have voice coverage, and slower Edge and GPRS for data.
I drive these areas often, and the number of places the phone drops to "No Signal" is really pretty small.
The areas where you can't even make a voice call are usually canyons.
Bear in mind where this data comes from. The maps are those areas that are going to eventually be built out
with the Federal Universal Service Charge. Thats the $5 per line that appears on your bi
Re:If you compare maps.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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The billions of dollars paid in frequency licenses by these companies insinuate that they are most certainly not using the public spectrum free of charge.
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As an example to my point, the 2008 spectrum auctions raised nearly $20Billion for the US Treasury - definitely not getting the public spectrum for free...
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Exactly. The FCC basically owns the waves that it's letting telecom use. They don't have to let them use that spectrum.
Fine. Lets take your position. Yank those licenses.
Now what?
Find someone else who has the millions to buy the spectrum, the billions to build a network. Wait 10 years while the build it.
Wait 3 years for them to go broke because NOBODY LIVES THERE!!!
Then what? What have you accomplished?
The map is for 3G and 4G.
Ya know, you can still make phone calls in most of those areas. Probably your porn comes in a little slower over EDGE,
and you can probably finish by hand faster than you will get it over GPRS, bu
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Last I heard the EM field belonged to everyone, telecoms included.
The FCC is just there to promote cooperative use of a resource owned in common.
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Well, duh. If you look at those maps and look at population and geographic maps - I wouldn't want to build out in many of the black areas either. Not only is the terrain forbidding, there's just not that many people there to be served.
Re:If you compare maps.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The benefit of a free market is that it does the best job at allocating limited resources. Right now 3G and 4G technology is expensive to implement. So it makes sense that it would be put to first use in a place where there is the fastest payback. All during the roll out of these technologies the prices become better known and cheaper. That allows the technology to spread. Think of it this way. Part of your carrier bill helps to pay for all of those towers you pass as you go about your daily life. The more people using that tower the cheaper it is to use it. Now if you live somewhere so remote that you and 5 families you know are the only ones using the tower you would either have to pay more for modern technology or wait until the tech gets cheaper. This is a perfect example of a free market working to allocate limited resources.
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There are going to be places where it isn't profitable to implement 3G no matter how much the technology improves.
The free market won't always allocate resources in a way which is most beneficial to society. It took government intervention to push electricity, phone lines and now broadband to many areas that are not profitable despite advancements in technology.
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I had a Motorola cell phone in 1995 and it was about a hundred bucks and about $25 per month for maybe a few hundred minutes a month. I now had a phone faster than my PC back then. The phone was $99 and the monthly fee for my wife and myself is less than $100 including data.
Before this we had free prepaid phones which were still better than the old phones. That plan was $100 for 1000 minutes which is way cheaper than my plan 15 years ago even without counting inflation.
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from 10 years ago, the same areas look like wastelands for net access in general.
Telecommunications companies simply don't want to build out.
Clue Bat:
Nobody lives in the black areas. Try a little google earth some day.
Its pretty damned hard to get a chipmunk to pay a cell bill.
It's true. (Score:2)
Many of these areas in Idaho (where I'm from) are actually too rugged to be used for logging. Why anyone would think they need 3G coverage is beyond me.
Direct Map Link (Score:5, Informative)
Link to the map, rather than using the tiny iframe in the article.
http://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v1/fcc.mobility-fund-phase-1-potentially-eligible-areas-oct-2011-data/mm/legend,zoompan,tooltips,zoomwheel,zoombox,attribution,bwdetect,share.html#0/0/0 [mapbox.com]
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Ugly colors too. :(
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Thanks. The resolution still sucks though.
The resolution is fine. There's a very detailed little black sliver of my town that shows as a 'wasteland'.
Which it is, but so is lots of the rest of the town, and it's not black at all on this map.
Decent resolution, useless accuracy.
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THANK you.
I was wondering why TFA had linked a map of central Africa...
Gee... (Score:4, Insightful)
Large areas where there's no advanced communications networks.
Of course, nobody really LIVES in most of those huge data voids, which is why nobody puts billions of dollars into building cell towers in those areas, but...
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Absolutely. Which is why this visualization is not useful. Now if they mapped the intersection of population density and cell coverage, that would be interesting. ;-)
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Yes. That would actually show useful data. I don't think people living out in the boonies expect or in many cases even want 3G coverage. On the other hand I watch all the droid and iphone users where I work drearily waiting while the supposed verizon and at&t broadband achieves slightly better than dialup speeds.
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I used to live in central Oregon, back in the day when cell phones were bricks. We were up riding horses in the Cascade Mountains, and one of our party fell and might have a back problem, so I rode back to our vehicle and called 911. The parking lot was down in a canyon, so I had to stand on top of the car to get a signal. I did get connected - to a 911 center 100 miles away, skipping over the nearest one in Bend (only 30 miles away)! They were a little confused for a while, but it all worked out with a
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I had a similar situation when I lived in central Oregon (specifically Redmond). I pulled out my trusty ham radio HT which was smaller and had better range than most cell phones at the time. Autopatched to emergency services via a repeater situated near Smith Rocks, which has way better coverage than any cell tower.
Just because there isn't cell coverage doesn't mean there is no communications. Those who want communications ability have it.
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Howdy neighbor! :D
Re:Gee... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, because farmers don't need to call 911 for help in an emergency, call the local food co-op to check this week's prices, order new seed from a supplier's web site, or e-mail the mechanic to get an ETA as to when the tractor will be fixed. And we certainly don't want the farmer's kids getting a decent education via distance learning web sites, or talking to their friends in nearby cities.
Putting cell towers in those areas is not profitable, but it is necessary. I say this as an Australian - for over a decade the commercial carriers did squat to wire up the country-side. The Australian government had to create its own carrier from scratch because the free market just didn't care about the 95% of the country where "nobody really lives there". Oh, except for the people who do.
Re:Gee... (Score:4, Informative)
The article doesn't say cellular voice coverage isn't available there - it says cellular data coverage isn't there. The aren't the same thing, not even close. Not to mention, the lack of cellular data coverage isn't the same thing as lack of internet access.
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The problem with that is where I am at, there's typically no voice coverage, either. There are huge areas in rural Western, WA that you can't get a cell signal because there's hills and mountains between you and any towers. What's even more funny is that when I'm at home, I get service from one tower that is 40 miles away. If the power goes out, there's no other tower nearby to take the calls, and there's no plan for any of the telco's to put one in. Heck, the one tower that feeds 4 towns (one having a popu
Satellite Phones? (Score:2)
Ever heard of satellite phones?
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I live on the east coast. I have neither 3G nor 4G. I also do not have high speed internet access. It's not like people don't live here either.
Where I live, people aren't even as spread out as they are over the western wastelands.
Some days... (Score:2)
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I was going to post, "It's not a bug. It's a feature" but replying to your post will do.
I ended up vacationing in Silverton Colorado in mid-September 2001. The B&B we stayed in had no TV and only one phone and it was at the foot of the stairs with guest room all on the second floor. Even better, Silverton had (and I think continues to have) absolutely no cell phone service. The town has even acted to PREVENT carriers from installing cell towers.
It's an absolutly fantastic place to really get away fr
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You can run, but you can't hide.
Satellite phones still work.
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I suggest we section it off and make a campground.
They already did. A lot of the places that have no coverage are park land or wilderness areas.
Link to the map (Score:4, Informative)
http://tiles.mapbox.com/fcc/map/mobility-fund-phase-1-potentially-eligible-areas [mapbox.com]
No people = no cellphones (Score:4)
Re:No people = no cellphones (Score:5, Funny)
What about Moose?
Look at Alaska - all those blank spots. All those poor Mooses without 3G coverage. How are they ever going to get to watch Northern Exposure reruns? While it's common to denigrate them as just another ungulate, Moose are smarter than the average American voter, smell better than the average American voter and certainly are better behaved.
Where's the love?
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While it's common to denigrate them as just another ungulate, Moose are smarter than the average American voter, smell better than the average American voter and certainly are better behaved.
The average tree stump can outwit a moose. While I remain cynical about my fellow men, I really think that moose are still more stupid than that.
What's more, moose don't pay taxes or vote and they taste delicious.
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Yeah, nobody lives in Palm Springs, San Luis Obispo, Montery, etc. Even the "middle-of-nowhere" in California has tons of people. Even the figures on the map are deflated by averaging huge areas with absolutely no people, in with real towns with reasonable population density.
Besides that, from the map it looks like the FCC is much more concerned with "road mile
not always great in the Northeast (Score:2)
I live in the Northeast (NJ) and coverage at my house is pitiful. I can't imagine what it's like in more remote areas.
The thing that isn't mentioned much is that even in areas with good signal, the sound quality of current digital cellular systems stinks. Even back in the 90's, analog cellular had WAY better sound quality.
Relief map (Score:2)
I'm willing to bet a relief map that just showed less than and greater than 7000 feet elevation would very closely match the map.
I live in one of the areas that is surrounded by black and sure enough it's a river valley. No great mystery, putting wireless in unpopulated mountainous terrain is not worth the effort.
Frist Ps0T from Envada (Score:5, Funny)
Bad and Good (Score:2)
There are trade offs wherever you live. People living out in the back end of Utah get to avoid the plague of crime and pollution of the populated areas and they miss out on facebook.
Tesla to the rescue! (Score:3)
What we need is one gigantic Tesla coil the size of Mons Olympus smack in the middle of the country. We can use it to beam wireless power to every phone and small gadget in the country and get rid of them nasty batteries and use the power feed as a carrier signal for everything else. (/sarcasm)
Silicon Valley! (Score:2)
No 3G Cowphone? (Score:2)
Did they mark the areas where its impossible? (Score:3)
The map does not appear to actually mark the areas of the country where it is completely impossible to setup service. In Idaho, where I grew up, there are huge tracts of government property with restrictions and limitations that make it impossible to have cell service, let alone 3G.
Craters of the Moon is one of the largest exposed lava rock flats in the world. If you go to Google maps and search for "idaho", you will see a huge black spot in the bottom right. The flow is actually much larger than that and its all one big preserve. Its impossible to run underground cables since its all basically solid rock, and running overhead wires is pretty damn challenging as well given the lack of roads.
The Frank Church wilderness area which makes up a large chunk of the middle of the state specifically bans wires and electricity, cell towers, wheels, and pretty much any other modern technology. There is no way it will have 3G coverage any time soon.
Montana has the Bob Marshal wilderness area, Wyoming has Yellowstone, California has Yosemite, etc.
Hell, even the south western part of Idaho is just a big flat desert with virtually no farms, roads, or people. Why should we worry about its 3g coverage?
Re:Where's the map? (Score:4, Informative)
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http://a.tiles.mapbox.com/v1/fcc.mobility-fund-phase-1-potentially-eligible-areas-oct-2011-data/mm/legend,zoompan,tooltips,zoomwheel,zoombox,attribution,bwdetect,share.html#6.00/38.617/-109.328 [mapbox.com]
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I've been to New York City. That's the worst wasteland I've ever seen. But then I've never been to LA.
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I remember thinking (with some glee), flying over the area east of Lake Powell, that you could dump the entire population of New York City out there, and ... nobody would ever hear from them again! :D
Some folks, including me, like being 60 miles from the nearest quick-mart. I live in New England now (for a little while more), but it's nice not having all this human commotion around. Out in the desert, after a few days you start to realize how little humanity means in the grand scheme of things.
One interes
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I live in Utah, and when I go to the mountains, I *expect* my cell phone to stop working. Heck, I count on it.
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